It took the better part of seven months for us to finally depart on the grand adventure we planned several years ago. As we drove south down the Oregon-Washington bridge and crossed the Columbia river, enjoying what remained of the quickly fading summer, we fell in love with the great city of Portland one last time before continuing south. It was great bitter-sweetness to watch Mt. Hood slowly disappear into the background with our old lives.
We reminisced about our favorite restaurants, bars, theaters. We remembered our childhoods as we charted familiar roads. We passed old date spots, family gathering locations, dog parks we frequented, rivers we swam in, wedding venues, old work places, friends, and family.
I murmured a small curse as we passed through Willsonville, glad to no longer have to deal with the horrid traffic that always accumulated there. We passed through Aurora where Hannah received her $900 speeding ticket. We passed the parking lot where someone attempted to hit our car and run.
We passed the home we sold seven months ago.
A note on Safety
Driving an RV is not a task to be taken lightly, and every safety precaution should always be taken. Hannah and I have very rigorous practices to ensure the vehicle is safe to travel. We verify our tank levels to get an idea of how much extra weight we can expect to carry. When preparing for transit, Hannah monitors the exterior to ensure proper operation and safety of ourselves and the environment. While she does this, I am usually operating the equipment on the vehicle. Things like the slide-out, jacks, hitch and toad.
The propane should always be checked for leaks. Colliding vehicles creates a lot of energy it turns out, and I’d hate to be exploded rather than sore from being side swiped. Then we have our TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) of course, which proved useful by catching a leak in a tire just before our departure.
This of course does not include standard vehicle maintenance, which to our benefit and her own demise, Hannah’s unresting mind will not let her forget a single detail. Seriously, she is like a machine when it comes to preventive maintenance planning and identifying issues. That is not my point of strength. Anybody who has spent the greater part of a year with me at least could tell you I have an issue with memory. Small things, usually inconsequential, but occasionally it can be an air filter. Or our brakes, which I had perpetually rolled my eyes when asked by Hannah to have them replaced.
This does not include other stories of our pre-trip woes, and it certainly has not ended. Stick around to learn about how our toad stopped driving, how we left an unpleasant amount of black water down the highway and some neighborhoods, and how our refrigerator alarmingly stopped cooling our stocked food.
The driving in and of itself is not too bad. It requires a lot of attention and even more coffee. Wide turns, checking your corners, and monitoring the toad. People do it everyday. It takes some practice to make the jitters go away, but once I had done it for a few dozen hours I had gotten the hang of it. The most stress and issues come from other drivers, and I WILL be talking more about that in the future.
And after a series of failures made into successes, we finally hit the road!
Destination 1: Lake Shasta, CA
Originally we had planned to travel west to highway 101 and head south to Crescent city. I grew up traveling to the Redwood forest with my father to camp, and Hannah and I had always wanted to go. Having never made the time, we thought it would make a great first destination. It became an issue that the land is highly desirable, and has been either privatized or otherwise monetized for campers, especially if they drive a larger vehicle.
So we pivoted and made our way south down I-5 with Lake Shasta in mind. We found some BLM land that would give us a couple of weeks to settle down. Driving the hills through Grants Pass is still one of my favorite drives. It has the rolling green hills from the east of Oregon, but also an absolute spectacle of trees. Even in the dead of winter, the green dominates the land. Never too far from a source of water, they grow plenty and endlessly, hunching together on the hills like an army.
It is a drive I am all too familiar with. My father was a big fan of driving south to Redding with us. I have lost count how many times I have done it, especially when paired with our trips to the Redwoods. But Redding was a very special trip. You see, my father swore my entire life left, right, up, and down that Redding had the best burger in the entire world. At least, Redding was the closest place with the best burger in the entire world. It was the In N Out double-double animal style. Hannah and I stopped on our way through Redding, and you know what? It is the best burger in the world.
Clay paradise
Shasta lake is a large reservoir in Shasta County, CA. They have a dam that generates power and provides flood control. We crossed a few sketchy bridges and held our breath when we crossed the sign telling us the road would not be maintained. After dodging some steep pot holes, we disconnected the toad and scouted for a spot. It was a lake beachside, a steep rocky cliff led to the cool waters. The ground was extremely soft, a bright orange that sticks to your shoes, you hands, your clothes, your dogs…
We parked the RV as close the the lake as we could. Just outside our living room window, glorious green mountains sprinkled with trees. Creeks and streams leading to the lake, we stared in awe for some time while we whispered about how it has never felt so silent in our lives before.
We let Izzy off leash for the first time ever, and she galloped like a tied down horse finally freed. We have been putting in overtime in training and impulse control with both of our dogs, and so her recall was decent given there was no distractions. We watched with joy and she climbed rocks and sniffed about, happily running back to us when asked to. Ida has since gotten lots of training and is much better.
Many times we had to get on our hands and knees to scrub the clay from the ground of the RV. It was a never ending battle, and we ultimately decided that bathing the dogs would not be worthwhile in the environment we were in. We also decided that an outdoor rug was going to be necessary for us and the dogs, just to keep it outside.
The first few days went a tad rough from a technical perspective. We learned the first night when our batteries wouldn’t hold a charge that our solar system was not functioning properly. It would run and power our systems during the day and quickly die at night. I quickly did some napkin math for our energy capacity and consumption and concluded we should be getting at least two and a half days of power (if the sun completely disappeared).
Trying to conserve power due to our lack of it, we switched the fridge over to propane instead of 120V. The next day, we realized it was warming up. The ice we stored in the freezer saved our meat, but the perishables in the fridge were going bad. I popped open the maintenance panel…
If you have an eye for wires, you’ll notice the ones on the left are disconnected. We plug them all in and… Propane still doesn’t start. I found the manual valve had been shut. I open it and finally we get a spark, and a fire! And another spark… And another. For the next hour we listen to the click of the igniter continually go off, and drain the battery it is attached to.
The igniter, the thermocouple, or the control board. It has to be one of those pieces. I ordered the first two and am still waiting to get them. For the time being, the igniter only gets plugged in when it needs to be started. The thermostat still shuts off the gas when the fridge is cool enough, so it functions semi-automatically for now.
With that problem solved, we tried to enjoy our time. The first night we clenched our hands and teeth from the sheer silence. Coming from inherently noisy environments, every crack and grumble in and around the RV had us stirring. This was really it: we were in the middle of nowhere. We were alone and in the open.
We spent the first few days walking the coast with the dogs, eventually finding a spot to easily climb down to the lake for water collection. We put up our camping chairs and practiced loose leash walking with the girls nearby, returning when they got too worked up or stopped listening. When we sat near the RV, I watched tutorials on various knots and practiced tying them. I created several handles for our water jugs to more easily transport water. Hannah created a few more pieces of art, and had some fun following some funny trends on social media for her page. We spent our nights looking at the stars, setting up campfires from the dried lake wood, and setting the projector up against the RV to watch cozy films.
When the weather mentioned for rain, I scoffed. Hannah asked if we could relocate to a spot with less clay and more gravel. I grumbled and pitched a fit, but ultimately love my wife and want her to feel safe. So we took a couple of hours to pack everything up to move a few dozen feet.
Oh my lord did it rain. For days at a time. I grabbed our jugs of water and placed funnels inside them. We filled 36 gallons by manually pouring them throughout the day. Multiple days. We had no shortage of water. Outside turned into an absolute mudslide, and even the dogs sat by the door too reluctant to explore. With our batteries already not holding a charge and clouds covering the region, we had no choice but to wrap the generator with a tarp and run it. The nights were getting so cold the auxiliary battery was dying at night trying to run the furnace blower, and we would wake to colder temps. But there is wonder to be said about sharing a small queen bed with three other warm bodies. We sleep comfortably.
The occasional break in the weather gave us reprieve from our cabin fever and allowed us to resume training with the girls. Towards the end of our time at lake Shasta, both were starting to consistently return to us when pulled to the end of their leashes. Hannah and I spent a grand amount of time researching and learning different techniques and hand picking them for the different personalities and struggles of the dogs.
A large obstacle for this lifestyle is that it is very outdoorsy, and dog people tend to be that way. So there are lots and lots of dogs. Off leash. Everywhere. Izzy is terrified of dogs, and has only just started being okay in the presence of strangers. When the occasional off leash dog (or three!) would charge her… I have never heard a dog scream. You know when a child screams so high pitch their voice cuts out? That was my poor girl. Terrified, thinking we had assailants raining down upon us. Okay. So we do some research, and now have a better plan on how to tolerate those situations.
Much like the dogs, Izzy finds herself afraid of the local wildlife as well. Ida would spot the occasional deer through the windows and let them know not to come near our home. Hannah’s face would light up when Ida would let us know she saw one. If we got lucky, Ida would not start with a bark, but with a curious coo. Hannah would be quick to calm her down and diligently search for what Ida saw. Hannah saw them first.
Izzy and I, out on a walk one morning, found one less than 15 feet away, on the recently soaked dry lake bed. Having not noticed it, I had Izzy sit and pointed it out to her. After a moment she noticed it, and they stared silently at each other. I remember the silence, the wind blowing, the deer staring back at us. Amazing, serene, I hoped it would last only a little longer, as I pet Izzy and told her how well she was doing.
She then reeled back, lunged to the end of her leash, and barked. The deer did not seem bothered, simply turned and headed back for the forest, turning back a couple of times to get a look at us. Izzy, way over threshold, stopped taking treats and needed to return home.
While we had issues with a few questionable characters and otherwise harmless rude individuals, the overall experience was very quiet, serene, and meditative. The girls got an opportunity to relax and transition into what their new lives will look like and so did we. We got to enjoy a slower, more methodical way of living, plan our meals, go on long walks, and spend time together and with our dogs. We found time to practice our photography and capture the beautiful sights, read books and stories around the campfire, laugh and cry at our mistakes, leap with joy from our accomplishments. Lake Shasta, even during a bizarre inclement weather event, is very enjoyable and worth the time if you love to get away from everything.
As we reached the end of our time here, we began to dwindle on our food. We started eating mostly oatmeal and planned for our next route to include a supermarket where we can refresh our supplies. We needed a laundromat, food, water, and a few other things. Hannah is the brains behind routes and planning that sort of thing, so she spent a grand amount of time on it and reviewed with me. I do the driving, and so I like to go over her routes to check for large vehicle hazards. She does this, but we have been burned when we have decided to skip the buddy check.
And so we departed, heading for the sunny desert, and pleased to be leaving behind the rain at last (except our horse was an RV and had a name: Nebula). With parts on order and plans to swap out the solar batteries, things haven’t been too bad.
Thank you for reaching the end and reading about our adventure! Be sure to check back and follow us on social media for updates and other fun stuff. We would also love to hear from you if you have any tips, tricks, ideas, or just want to reach out!
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